


Something better than Nothing

by zanfii



Category: B.A.P.
Genre: M/M, Romance, Short
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-12-14
Updated: 2017-12-14
Packaged: 2019-02-14 16:00:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,219
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13011225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/zanfii/pseuds/zanfii
Summary: Daehyun is a struggling art student who shelters someone his Social-worker-friend (aka Bang Yongguk) introduces him to.





	Something better than Nothing

It’s a cheap, one bedroom apartment – the kind you have to scrunch up your nose from the piss smell to walk to, with gray walls you can see through the worn old wallpaper. Every Sunday morning I brush and wash the outside – the environment around the complex has somewhat improved in comparison to what it was six months back, when I moved in.

I’m a busy guy. I juggle college between three work shifts and is slaving my life away, stuck in a room with barely enough space for my art supplies. It’s true, what they say about artists – progress is too much a hurdle.  
But why am I here alone? To be brief: I don’t have a family; as of current. Had been that way for the past half an year. It doesn’t make my chest less heavy to talk about it; so I won’t.  
But I’m not particularly alone.

There’s another guy who crashes at my place for the night. He’s visibly younger, but I’ve never asked. I’m afraid I’d discover more and more things about him I’d rather not know. Our relationship? Not the sweetest kind. We met through another guy – a social worker who looks nothing like it. Six feet tall, Black T shirts and tattoos all over, and the voice of a punk rock screamer: classic stereotypical bully exterior who talks about world peace. His name is Bang Yongguk, and I befriended him in college – after I realized he’s the only person I’m comfortable being around with, weird as that sounds. For a simple reason too. He didn’t discriminate.

It wasn’t the fateful meeting where the star crossed lovers met each other’s gazes. Yongguk rang me up soon after my shift at the pizzeria ended; and said: “Daehyun, I need your help. Fairly desperately.” When I asked why, my apron only half undone – he said: “There’s a kid here, he has passed out: I managed to get him out before the cops came – he needs to stay somewhere. Can you come?”

I’ve helped Yongguk through several of his “Social worker” businesses. Most the cases he handled included domestic violence. When he said “kid” I pictured a six year old boy Yongguk didn’t want to send to the police to be held in custody. But when I got there – the “kid” was much bigger than I expected. He didn’t pass out because his parents beat him either.  
It was a case of substance abuse and prostitution.

I was reluctant at its best. But I couldn’t turn down Yongguk. And at that moment, I felt sorry for him. His name was Youngjae. Skinny, pale, and large doe eyes that stared me down to my core; when he woke up in my room. The only explanation I ever had about this boy, was what Yongguk had given me.

He said we’re similar, and that he’s going down a wrong path.

As much as I’d dislike to be put into a “similar because gay” basket, I couldn’t deny Youngjae at that moment. To think back, I had never denied Youngjae of anything. I’m afraid I’d discover things I’d rather not know. Clearly that’s a problem. I try so desperately to maintain distance between us. Youngjae picked up on that faster than I. I asked him questions, a lot of them too; but none of it that matters.  
“Better?”  
“Hungry?”  
“Tired?”  
“Tasty?”  
“Do you like the strawberry flavored one or the chocolate one?”

In the morning, I leave him behind for college. I run for work shifts after college, and when I come back, he’s never there.  
When he comes back, hours past midnight – he toes straight to the bathroom. He comes out dressed in my shirts and shorts, bruises on his face and hands. The first couple of days, I pretended to sleep as he stuffed cash into my wallet. On the third day, I sat up.  
“You don’t have to do that.”  - And with that; quietly he stuffed the papers back into his own pockets. Then he sat on his knees, head bent low.

“Please take it.” He murmured.

“It’s alright. You can stay here, and keep your cash.”

The next day, he didn’t come back. Or the day after that. For weeks. When I spoke to Yongguk, he told me that he has gone back to the brothel. That was the first thing I learned that I would have rather not known. Clubs that are brothels, out in the open in Korea. And I was stupid. I went to find him.  
Why?  
Did I want to be the one face out of the crowd who cared for him? Or did I genuinely care for him?  
I was neither. The one who cared was Yongguk.  
I?  
I was only sorry.

I figured what happens to his cash if I don’t take it.  
I was anxious and shaky from my bones to face Youngjae again. But him? Not a care in the world. Drunk – and high; he welcomed me with open arms and showered me with kisses. He linked our hands and walked us out, feet knocking on each other, incapable of balance. I held him and walked us out of a cheap, muddy club, filled and packed with tourists on sex tour. I only had to say the name to be pointed in a direction to find Youngjae.

I brought him back to my room in a taxi – in the most uncomfortable ride back home. The taxi driver had his worst face on. Every time Youngjae crawled onto me with tongue and cheek, he grunted in disgust. At least he didn’t say anything. When we got inside, I learned the second thing I would have rather not known. How good Youngjae was at sex. He was ill-coordinated and high but he could still grind his hips like nothing.

The next day he treated it like nothing.  
I suppose it was.  
Nothing.

But eventually, we grew into it.  
Each night he’d come back home, he’d fuck me after his bath. And it escalated; to do it again, once in the morning. And I didn’t deny him of it.

We’d be at it, day and night.

It was the kind of chemistry that was explosive. With time, Youngjae was grew into being sober. Some days, he’d be back before I get home after my shifts. I ended up walking into cooked dinner and comfortable cuddles.  
But he still stuffed cash in my wallet.  
And I couldn’t say no. I’d rather have his money than have him spend it on drugs. But I couldn’t bear to hold onto it. I collected everything in an account, sneaking into an ATM deposit machine on my way to college.

On some days, Youngjae was too much for me to bear in my mind. There’s so much to him that I didn’t understand, and so much that was between us that was frail and temporary. What we had between us; I thought was more than a mere convenient arrangement.  
But was it love?  
And if it was – what can we ever make out of it?

But I still went back to him, every single day. And he did too. If what we had between us needed a name, I would call it: an inconvenient arrangement.  
But it was something.

 

Something felt better than nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by "Bite sized horror movies"; recent advertisement campaign by Fox and Mars.
> 
> Almost Symphony No.2 - but more dandy.


End file.
